The feature photo you see above depicts a U.S. Border Patrol helicopter squeezed into a too tight tract of asphalt at a dangerous intersection marked as such. The location is right outside Fort Walton Beach Medical Center (FWBMC) where the border patrol pilots used precision, aviation skills, and a determined duty to transport injured victims of Hurricane Michael.
As a Floridian, the past few days dumped plenty of rain upon the Sunshine State, but Florida’s panhandle received a direct hit, decimating many coastal cities and towns. Further inland is Tallahassee, the state capitol, whose Florida State University College of Law took a beating. 
One of my neighbor’s told me she was driving on Interstate 75 yesterday when she saw a caravan of lineman and arborists in varying utility trucks headed north to pitch in with Hurricane Michael recovery efforts. She said she cried bittersweet tears: for the horror hurricanes bring as well as for the heroes who repeatedly go in to pick up the pieces while despairing souls (residents) figure out what to do next.
In addition to lineman and arborists, the usual suspects arriving before, during and after a catastrophic hurricane blast’s through are all-in as well. Police personnel, firefighters, animal control officers, EMTs, National Guard soldiers, federal agents, state emergency management operatives, nurses, doctors, wrecker operators, and any manner of service providers arrived with necessary equipment and job-filling apparatus.
Power company trucks have poured into Florida for several days preceding Michael’s trajectory and intensifying fury. Similarly, police forces contributed cops while fire stations sent engine companies from outside of Florida as well as from within her borders, basically agencies whose jurisdictions were largely untouched by the hurricane other than rain and light winds.
In the path of Hurricane Michael is Tyndale Air Force Base near Mexico Beach. Fox 13 weatherman Paul Dellegatto in Tampa is always involved when it comes to Florida’s hurricane activities, reporting surreal events:
On Paul Dellegatto’s site I found the following description by a self-professed “hardcore hurricane chaser,” Josh Morgerman, based in California: “It’s hard to convey in words the scale of the catastrophe in Panama City. The whole city looks like a nuke was dropped on it. I’m literally shocked at the scale of the destruction.”
Fox 13‘s Cynthia Smoot also contributed footage of Hurricane Michael’s powerful force:
Much of the footage we are starting to see is what little remains of Mexico Beach, a small coastal enclave of homes on stilts and boats everywhere. Many of those homes are now literally concrete slabs and most of the boats were tossed like Tic Tacs by Hurricane Michael’s incredible winds.
Instead of describing the decimation of Mexico Beach and surrounding jurisdictions, WFLA News climatologist Josh Nelson went airborne in the station’s news chopper and recorded the following footage:
What you just saw is what public safety officials, search and rescue personnel, and utility workers will contend with now that Hurricane Michael has passed through Florida’s panhandle. Mexico Beach employs a modest-size police department; at least, it did before Michael stomped through. The MBPD site boasts law enforcement jurisdiction for 1,072 full-time residents whose coastal enclave is touted as “Mayberry on the water.” Sadly, that is no longer true.
As often is the case when a police department becomes part of the wipe-out by Florida’s myriad hurricane arrivals, other unscathed law enforcement agencies are authorized/assigned by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to assume police provisions and responsibilities, for as long as it is deemed necessary. I had such a venture in Bowling Green, Florida years ago, having remained there for roughly three weeks before being debriefed and returned to my own jurisdiction. Logistical plans are always on the table for a state whose hurricane season can be mysterious, unyielding, and ripe for flooding by the geography’s landmass enveloped by ocean at the edges of roughly 70-plus-percent of its surface area.
The Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office, a county law enforcement agency operating in Florida’s panhandle, has fielded status projections of unsafe areas and the eventual return of residents who evacuated, while also charting reports of missing parties, none of it an easy task. A breath of fresh air is that hotels and other businesses not too terribly impacted by Hurricane Michael opened their doors and catered meals and facilities for law enforcement officials as well as service personnel involved with restoration efforts.
For residents seeking re-entry to survey their own property damages, Bay County Sheriff Tommy Ford had the following customary message: “Many of those that did evacuate are asking about re-entry. Sheriff Ford is working hard to make that happen as soon as possible. Clearing roads is one of the top priorities of the Emergency Operations Center and the Sheriff Ford. Crews are working diligently to clear roads of downed trees and debris. Power crews are working to fix the NUMEROUS snapped power poles and downed lines. PLEASE BE PATIENT. Right now, at 10:40 am, no one will be allowed re-entry unless they are a RELIEF CREW member. Checkpoints have been established on Highways 77, 79, and 231. You will not be allowed into Bay County YET. You can choose to turn around, or you can shelter temporarily at Bozeman School until roads are safe.”
When tragic things happen, good people do come together. And it takes time to get everyone back to square-one so as to survey, work together, and strive for restoration so as to begin anew.
Speaking of anew, Hurricane Michael’s enormous surges washed ashore thousands of starfish, many with missing limbs. Marine officers and biologists are reminding folks that starfish limbs regenerate and that these ordinarily five-point organisms are alive and will make their way back to their ecosystem. If only that were the case for Florida’s landlubbers.
